Monday, February 27, 2012

Ugh--I am freaked out by the job-search process; CVs, asking for recs, it all freaks me out; I wish I could see myself as a professional not, perpetually, a student; of course, being a perpetual student is good, but I need some explici8t confidence! I want to teach poetry workshops! Comp really is a good gig, but some variety wld be awesome. In a few minutes I'm going to join AWP so I can look at their joblist! It's terribly late in the year for this, but I guess I need to start anyways! I don't want to rot in Vegas

Ok, good news: my book, For Days, will be out shortly from BlazeVox. I hope someone decides to formally review it or post a note on their blog!

Other news: I havn't written a poem for a while--over a week; I get that this is not a big gap, but for me it vaguely is. Sometimes feeling stressed makes me write lots and lots; but not this time! And what I should be attempting is popular fiction--in my mind/dreams it makes sooooooooo much sense for me to do this; and then, ugh, I get too PC for popular fiction. Or am I all wrong and a manuscript centered around designer names and which stilletos to wear is ripe for deepness! I feel like any fiction attempt I make will just whether or not I want it to get academic/academic feminist. Ugh, I need to purge this pointless fear and just crash out a hundred pages and try and write my way to Robertson Boulevard, valet parking, insane creditcard bills! Agh but then, back to academia, I get stressed that writing abhout rich girls shopping is just the height of not expanding gender representation--which of course is true and apt, as since when is popular fiction expanding representation (hopefully I'm very wrong 'bout this!). If I was eager to write parody things might be easier; but, yikes, that's not my dream!

Ok, I wish I am the type to write really long blog entries, to just go and go and go, and be personable not clipped. I wish prose felt natural to me; I wish delving into the minutae of my freaked-out life seemed like actual fodder for paragraphs.

How is one supposed to negotiate feeling pathetic and egotistical; I embody the combo but it's not a sweet run. Some "prestigious" acceptances wld maybe do wonders: a poem taken by the Chicago Review, for example. Or Conjunctions. Or the Denver Quarterly. For years I've been good about relentlessly submitting poems; and, alas, I'm getting burnt-out; it's sorta sad to do the whole SASE chore and know that a few months later I'll get a rejection-slip. Wow yah if anyone wants to hiss at me oh blogger why do you care 'bout prestige publications. And, not funny, the answer is because I guess it might make me marketable.

Note: it's not that I've not been published in some plum places--I totally have; I'm just greedy and want more! More!

APR--please take one of the poems I sent you all yesterday! Ditto Pleiades!

Ok this may be the most self-centered gripey blogpost I've yet spewed; hopefully I'll get better at this mode!